Govindan Nair, C.J.- Thiru M. Karunanidhi, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, is the petitioner in the criminal revision case as well as in the criminal miscellaneous petition. The revision is directed against the order of the Special Judge appointed under section 6 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, l952, disposing of Crl.M.P. No. 2384 of 1976 in C.C. No. 27 of 1976. The prayer in Crl.M.P. No. 2384 of 1976 was to discharge the petitioner under section 239 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. By the order sought to be revised the prayer was refused. Crl.M.P. No. 429 of 1977 purports to be under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and the prayer therein is that the proceedings of the Special Judge in C.C. No. 27 of 1976 on his file be quashed.

2. The. Arguments advanced in the revision as well as in the criminal miscellaneous petition were the same and the revision case and the criminal miscellaneous petition are therefore being disposed of by this common judgment.

3. The Acts with which we are concerned are the Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1952, and the Tamil Nadu Public Men (Criminal Misconduct) Act, 1973. We shall refer to these enactments hereafter as the Penal Code, the Procedure Code, the Corruption Act, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, and the State Act and to the first four compendiously as the Central Laws.

4. The main points urged by counsel on behalf of the petitioner were: (i) The State Act contained provisions repugnant to the Central Laws, the Penal Code, the Procedure Code and the Corruption Act, and in view of Article 254 (2) of the Constitution, the State Act alone could be applied and investigation for offences thereunder can only be done under the State Act. The investigation made under the Procedure Code, which led to the first information report, and the sanction under section 197 of the Procedure Code as well as the criminal complaint before the Special Judge are therefore without the authority of law; (ii) Even assuming that the Procedure Code and the Corruption Act were available, no action could be taken against the petitiner for most of the offences under the sections under which he had been charged because he is not a public servant.

5. During the course of the arguments, which ranged over a very wide field, the interpretation to be placed on section 29 of the State Act, as it stood before and, after it was amended in 1974 was dealt with. It was suggested that, if section 29 as amended is interpreted to mean that the provision would enable action being taken for offences falling under section 3 of the State Act, under the Central Laws, section 29 itself would be invalid as it would be against the provisions of Article 254 (2) of the Constitution. Another argument urged in this connection was that section 29 of the State Act having been enacted at a time when Article 14 of the Constitution had not been suspended consequent on the Emergency, the section must be interpreted as rot authorising actions being taken under the State Act or the Central Laws indiscriminately. Only such an interpretation would make the section conform to the requirements of Article 14 and every law made must be presumed to be made subject to Constitutional provisions and. An interpretation which would violate any provision of the Constitution should not be placed on the section. It was further contended that the suspension of Article 14 of the Constitution consequent on the declaration of Emergency was only with respect to what was termed as “Emergency Laws’ and that the suspension would not, therefore, apply to the State Act, as it is not an Emergency Law, but one passed long before the Emergency was declared and hence, if section 20 of the State Act permitted one or the other of the procedures, one under the State Act and the other under the Central Laws, the State Act would be discriminatory and violative o

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